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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Graham Lewis for Three Counties Action on behalf of Mr Edward L. Hancock and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Hancock fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was sent to an army camp at Wrotham in Kent to be tested as a candidate for a commission. The camp was plastered with signs informing you that everything had to be done at the double. We were allocated our Nissen huts, told to put on the usual white shirts, shorts and plimsolls and get up to the field. There must have been 100 or so of us gathered at the bottom right hand corner of an enormous field. To our left, a couple of hundred yards away at the top of a fairly steep slope was a flat area sheltered by trees. Running almost the length of the field were gigantic structures created from tree trunks and providing formidable obstacles to be overcome.

While we were waiting there, a head popped up behind a hedge on our right and an arm and a hand beckoned me to it. Intrigued, I went over to what proved to be a handyman who did all the odd jobs around the camp. This figure, with brush in hand, asked if I would be interested in receiving some very useful information at a cost of two-shillings-and-sixpence. I pointed out that, while I would like to know what information he had to impart, I had no money on me, being clad only in a pair of shorts with no pocket. He assured me that my promise of payment would be acceptable and I responded by saying that I would pay provided that the information was useful. He then said, “In a few minutes a group of officers will appear from among the trees. One of them will step forward and, speaking through a megaphone, will tell you that when he blows his whistle, you will make your way up to him. Don’t hang around. Get up there as fast as you can.�

Events occurred just as this amiable fellow said; so, on the whistle, I belted up the hill as fast as I could and got there first.

After receiving various bits of information from the officer and having our names recorded in the order of our arrival, we returned to our huts. That afternoon, three lists of names were posted on the notice boards. These lists indicated the length of the course one had to pursue in order to gain the possibility of a commission. There were one-week, two-week and three-week courses. For being first up the hill I was one of those to get a one-week course. I couldn’t get to the handyman quick enough to pay my two-and-six.

Mid-way through the course, on a Sunday, we were given a lecture by a brigadier on the delights of India. I had already been brainwashed on this subject during my basic training at Dering Lines in Brecon and I left the building having signed up for a career of eight years in the Indian Army.

So I left Wrotham and a future commission and went home for a few days’ leave. There, my father and I visited various relatives to say goodbye. I little knew that I would never see my father again. He died in 1945 a month or so before I got home at the end of my army campaign.

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